Why You Should Be Grateful This Thanksgiving

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Rather than rolling your eyes when it's your turn to bow your
head and give thanks, try being grateful. The result just might
be good for you. From boosting your mood to improving your
relationships, research shows that being thankful is good for
your health.

If you don't want to voice your gratitude, writing a letter may
do the trick, according to various studies by Steve Toepfer of
Kent State University at Salem and his colleagues.

"If you are looking to increase your
well-being through intentional activities, take 15 minutes
three times over three weeks and write letters of gratitude to
someone," Toepfer said in a statement, referring to a 2011 study
published in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

Toepfer and his colleagues had 219 students with an average age
of 25 fill out questionnaires to gauge their well-being,
returning to the lab to fill out the survey three more times,
with each visit about a week apart. Some of the students wrote a
letter of gratitude each time they returned to the lab, while the
control group didn't write about
being thankful.

"The letter writers were instructed to write a letter of
gratitude to anyone they wanted, however, the letter couldn't be
trivial and it couldn't be a 'thank you' note for a gift or
'thanks for saying hello to me this morning,'" Toepfer said. "The
participants had to write about something that was important to
them."

The results showed that the subjects'
levels of happiness and life satisfaction improved after each
letter they wrote. In addition, depressive symptoms decreased
over time with the letter writing.

Similarly, in a study published in 2010, researchers from the
University of California, Riverside, and Duke University in
Durham, N.C., asked 220 participants ages 20 to 71 years to write
letters of gratitude over a 6-week period, while the control
group was asked to list their past experiences. The study found
that participants who wrote letters of gratitude demonstrated
larger increases
in life satisfaction than the subjects in the control group.

Counting your blessings doesn't just cheer you up — it can
improve your health and energy levels as well.

A 2007 study conducted by researchers at the University of
California, Davis, and the Mississippi University for Women found
that organ-transplant recipients who kept "gratitude journals"
listing five things or people that they were grateful for each
day scored better on measures of general health, mental health
and vitality than those who only made routine notes about their
days. The study was presented at an annual meeting of the
American Psychological Association.

"We found that increased feelings of gratitude can cause people’s
well-being and quality of life to improve," study researcher
Robert Emmons, a professor who specializes in the study of
gratitude at UC Davis, said in a statement.

A successful relationship may depend on your gratitude, it seems.
Research reported in 2010 looking at more than 65 couples who
were in satisfying and committed relationships showed that each
couple's relationship quality corresponded with one partner's
feelings of gratitude. Researchers tracked the day-to-day
fluctuations in relationship satisfaction among the couples and
found that on the day that one partner expressed feelings of
gratitude, both partners experienced a positive emotional
response.

For some couples, these positive feelings lasted until the next
day. The findings suggest that
everyday gratitude serves as an important
relationship-maintenance mechanism and can help to strengthen
romantic bonds, according to the researchers.

"We are all walking around with an amazing resource: gratitude,"
said Toepfer, author of the Kent State University study. "It
helps us express and enjoy, appreciate, be thankful and satisfied
with a little effort. We all have it, and we need to use it to
improve our quality of life."

You can follow LiveScience writer Remy Melina on Twitter@remymelina.
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